


Unite and Surrender

by MissAnnThropic



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s04e05 Divide and Conquer, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:45:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9711971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAnnThropic/pseuds/MissAnnThropic
Summary: Jack O’Neill should not be at Samantha Carter’s house at ten o’clock at night.  It was true on a good day, and it was especially true today.





	

**Author's Note:**

> General Warning: I will not tag to your satisfaction. I think tagging is out of control, and I will not tag a fic to the point of spoiling what happens in a fic. I’m an old-school reader who believes the story should be able to surprise you. If that’s a deal-breaker for you, turn back now.
> 
> Cross-posting: I do not consent to have my fics posted to other websites (such a Goodreads).

Jack O’Neill should _not_ be at Samantha Carter’s house at ten o’clock at night. 

It was true on a good day, and it was _especially_ true today. Jack still didn’t know what Fraiser had told Hammond about their second go at the Za’tarc test. He didn’t know if Hammond knew they had both been hiding _feelings_ from their first accounts… but it was fair to say if the general didn’t know already, he would soon.

Which was all the more reason Jack should be staying the hell away from Sam. They’d be under even closer scrutiny now that their dirty little secret was _out there_.

Somehow that translated into Jack O’Neill standing on Sam Carter’s doorstep at ten o’clock at night ringing the doorbell.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for her to answer the door. A full moon was shining in an otherwise clear night sky bejeweled with stars. Under other circumstances, it was the kind of night he’d spend up on his roof with his telescope.

But not tonight.

He frowned when there was no answer at her door. He glanced over his shoulder, verified her silver sports car was parked in front of her house, then opted for knocking.

Again, no answer.

He was just beginning to contemplate his next course of action when he heard a distant but unmistakable, “ _Fuck_!”

While he rarely heard such vulgar language from his 2IC, he knew her voice anywhere.

He stepped off her stoop and wandered around the side of the house, leaning around the corner to peek into the unfenced backyard.

The back porch light was on, throwing a harsh uric light on the woman sitting on the ground by the back of the house. A torn-up patch of dirt along the foundation was strewn with pieces of dead rose bushes. More pieces were scattered within throwing distance of the forlorn woman. Meanwhile, Sam was sitting with her legs folded under her, more to the left than the right, with her hands in her lap. Her head hung so that all he could see was her messy blonde hair. He could see her shoulders rising and falling like she was on the verge of tears.

Or screams.

“Carter?”

Sam startled and looked up. After getting a look at her face, he _still_ wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream or cry.

“Sir?”

Jack eased around the house and approached her carefully. “Whatcha doing?”

She looked down at her hands, at a loss. When he got closer, Jack could see her hands were covered in cuts. Bleeding. There were pruning shears on the ground beside her, a pair of gloves she obviously should have been using, and the decimated rose bushes on all sides.

Jack reached her and knelt down in front of her. “Hey,” he said lowly to get her attention.

Sam looked back up at him. What he saw made his heart ache. She looked on the ragged edge of broken.

He looked around at the damage done to her roses. “Odd time to do some gardening,” he tried to joke.

Sam swallowed and bit her lip. “I…” then she began to gulp for air. He could see her body start to shake from the effort to keep herself from flying apart.

“C’mere,” Jack whispered as he sat down, almost hip to hip with her, and tugged her into his arms.

Sam folded against his chest, laid her head on his shoulder, and she finally cried. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung to his shirt as she broke in his embrace.

Jack rubbed her back slowly, trying to soothe the pain he knew no hand could touch, and tucked his face into her neck.

He wondered what had done it, what part of the day had been the last straw – what event had been more than Sam could take. Maybe it was just the culmination of everything. It had been a pretty awful day.

Sam kept it together better than most… she was due a good breakdown.

When her sobs tapered off, Jack gave her a squeeze and lifted his head just enough to lay his cheek against her temple. “Feel better?”

She huffed. “Not really, sir.”

He pulled back and looked down into her face. She looked like hell and she knew it, if her refusal to meet his eyes was any indication.

He looked around at the damage done to her flowers. “I didn’t know you had roses.”

Sam scoffed. “I don’t. They died. Just like everything else.”

Jack frowned.

Sam let her arms slip away from him, and he caught her hands when they passed by his. She winced and he looked down at the collection of cuts on her pale skin. “You know roses have thorns, right?”

“ _Obviously_.”

“Uh huh… so why weren’t you wearing gloves?”

Sam tried to pull her hands out of his and scowled when he held tight. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Try me.”

Sam tried to free her hands again, and when he still refused to let her go, she sighed. “It’s my fault they died… I felt like I owed them.” Owed them her pain. Owed them her blood.

Jack fought back a sigh and tugged on her wrists. “Come on… let’s go inside and clean these up.”

“No.”

“No?”

Sam shook her head and still refused to look at him. “Sir, please… I’m not up for this right now.”

“This?”

“Us.”

That hit like a kick to the gut. Jack loosened his hold on her wrists. “Ah,” he responded, doing his best to sound neutral.

Sam finally looked up at him, distress in her eyes. “No, I just… I mean I can’t play the part.”

“Can’t leave it in the room, you mean?” he guessed.

She winced. “Yeah.”

That should have terrified him. Instead, relieved, he answered, “Yes, well… let’s just forget about that damn room for tonight, okay?”

She looked at him, fearful and searching.

“Come on,” he stood and reached down to take her wrists again, at last pulling her to her feet. “Let’s get your hands cleaned up.”

She let him lead her into her kitchen, where he left her standing so he could fetch her first aid kit from the bathroom. He laid it open on the counter, pulled out the antiseptic, and motioned her over to the sink.

Painfully silent, Sam held her hands over the sink and only allowed a pained hiss to escape when he poured the wash over her hands.

He kept waiting for her to talk, but she continued to say nothing. Finally, when he was down to patting her hands dry with gauze, he ventured, “So…”

She tensed but didn’t speak.

“Come on, Carter… talk to me.”

Sam looked up at him, a glance Jack saw from the corner of his eye but he didn’t meet it. He kept his eyes focused on her hands, thinking perhaps it would make it easier for her to talk if he wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m sorry.”

He did look up then, surprised how close they were standing. “For what?”

“Part of me wishes you were Martouf.”

Well… “Okay, I won’t lie, that kind of hurts.”

Sam grimaced. “But the part of me that feels that way isn’t even _me_.”

“Some of it is,” Jack argued. He put the gauze away and pulled out a tube of antibiotic cream. “You liked old Marty.”

She paled. “I did… but not like this. Some part of me is hurting like I knew him for a hundred years. I know the feelings Jolinar left behind are why I… but I didn’t know _I_ would hurt this much when he died.”

“You should cut yourself some slack, Carter. It’s okay to be sad that he’s dead.”

“Not like this.”

“Actually, it is. Because you had that guy’s _mate_ in your brain, and it left some stuff behind. So you have to deal with it. And it’s not fair, but it is okay.”

Sam lowered her eyes to his hands that were smearing cream onto the cuts on her hands. “I’m so confused.”

“Understandable.”

“I’m miserable that he’s gone… but I’m also really glad you’re okay.”

Jack paused a second, not even breathing, then he continued to slowly treat her hands. “Yeah, me too. Glad _you’re_ okay, that is.”

She looked up at him again, this time accusation in her eyes. “Because you were ready to sacrifice yourself for me.”

He blinked, nonplussed. “You mean today or on Apophis’s ship?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Both.”

He shrugged.

She closed her wounded hand around his as he tried to paint a cut near her thumb. The hold forced him to look up into her eyes.

Sam looked wrathful. “I can’t decide if I would hurt worse if I’d lost you than I feel now about losing Martouf.”

He cocked his head slightly, considering her.

“Do you have any idea how bad that is?”

“I think so.”

Sam’s lips pinched tight. “I don’t think you do.”

“You’re afraid losing me would hurt more than it did losing a companion you’ve known a century? Yeah, Carter, I think I do.”

Sam paled and let his hand go.

Jack calmly began laying band-aides over the worst of her cuts.

“What am I supposed to do? Part of me is devastated that Martouf and Lantash are gone, but an even bigger part of me is saying ‘at least it wasn’t Jack’.”

Jack paused, always brought up short whenever she said his first name. He stole a glance at her, honestly overwhelmed by what he found in her face, and he shook his head. “We can’t do anything, you know that. Just be grateful we made it through this one and keep going like we always do.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Finished with her hands, Jack straightened his back from being hunched over the sink and looked down at her. “We’ll manage. Don’t ask me _how_ , because I have no idea, but we always do.”

Sam looked down at her bandaged hands then back up at him. “Did you know?”

“Know?”

“That I…” she trailed and looked away, embarrassed.

“Are you kidding?” Jack asked. “You’re a certified genius, Carter. You have better sense and more brains than to fall for some wise-ass old bird colonel like me.”

One corner of her mouth twitched upward. “Apparently not.”

“Right.” Jack roughed a hand through his hair. “Look, Carter… I have no idea where we go from here. Hammond might feel the need to step in.”

Sam blanched and held her wounded hands close to her chest. “He knows?”

“Well, if he doesn’t now, he will once Fraiser turns in her report on the second round of Xanax tests. I don’t see how she can get around it. Not that she would, even if there were a way to fudge the report.”

“I’m not ready to give up SG-1.”

“Neither am I.”

She looked up at him then, a look like resignation in her eyes. “So… it stays in that room.”

Jack shrugged. “If we can somehow convince Hammond we aren’t a liability in the field because of _this_ ,” he gestured between them, “then I don’t see any other choice.”

Sam sagged where she stood.

“Are we okay with that?” he asked for the second time that day.

Sam closed her eyes as she seemed to accept the weight of their decision. “We have to be.” She opened her eyes and looked mournfully at him. “Sir.”

 _Sir_. “Right.”

Sam moved a step closer to him… as close as they had stood when a force shield kept them apart. “Does it change things? Knowing I…”

“Maybe. But maybe it won’t make much difference.” At her puzzled look, he shrugged, “I cared about you too much before, I care about you too much now… honestly, not much has changed for me.”

“Yeah… same here.” She studied him. “Except now you know I…”

“And you know that I…” he gestured at her.

Sam allowed a small smile. “Are we really going to _not_ say it?”

“I don’t think we can.” Three little words had never felt so dangerous. “Not yet, anyway.”

Something like interest, like _hope_ , sparked in her eyes. “No… but maybe someday?”

“I fucking hope so,” Jack answered.

Sam’s smile softened, became more genuine, and light like love shined in her eyes. “Well, then I feel better.”

Jack gave her a lopsided smile. “So… we good?”

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “This could get complicated, sir, you know that.”

“Oh, you bet.” He closed the distance between them and reached up to run his fingers through her hair – the exact insane urge he’d had when a shield had kept him from her. “But you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

She gazed up at him, losing herself in his eyes. Then her gaze dropped to his mouth.

Jack felt unbearably alive.

“Colonel?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we still ignoring the room for tonight?”

Jack sucked in a breath. “I think we better reinstate the room clause in the next twenty seconds.” For both their sakes.

“Twenty seconds, huh?” she asked, then she swayed into him, tipped her face up to his…

Jack wasn’t really sure who closed the final distance between them, but ultimately he didn’t care.

Their kiss was chaste… not a frantic tangle of tongues or desperately clutching hands. It was sweet… a prelude. A promise.

When they reluctantly pulled apart, Sam stayed near him, as though living off his breath. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Maybe not… but I think you needed it. I know I did.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled gently. “It’s going to be okay, Sam.”

For the first time that night, she looked like she believed him. “Yes, sir.”

He nodded and took a step back. “I should probably go.”

“Yes, sir.”

She showed him to her door, where she said, “Thank you for stopping by to check on me, sir.”

“Don’t mention it.” He thought a second. “No, really, _don’t mention it_.”

Sam let out a wrecked laugh.

He grinned. “And Carter?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I really am sorry about Martouf.”

Sam sobered and nodded. “Thank you, sir. I hate that he’s gone… but at least it wasn’t you.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Major.”

“Good.”

He finally felt like he could leave her. Like she might not be okay now, but she was definitely on her way. He stepped out the door. “Take care of yourself, Carter. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night, sir.”


End file.
